


Rest Your Head Close to My Heart

by Who Shot AR (akerwis)



Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: 1920s, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Married Couple, Morning Sickness, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:03:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akerwis/pseuds/Who%20Shot%20AR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evy has a bout of morning sickness in the very wee hours of the morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest Your Head Close to My Heart

"Rick?" came a quiet voice, floating toward him over the desert sands as though carried by the slight breeze. It was soft, more moan than speech, and he took no notice of it. The distant shadow of ruins, little more than a smudge on the horizon, hadn't grown any larger in all the time he was riding, but they had to get there. He'd promised gold and glory to these men, and he knew he'd live to regret it if he disappointed them.  
  
The cry came again, this time cut short by a strangled groan.  
  
Rick O'Connell's eyes flew open, and the Sahara was gone. He was only a man lying in a dark bedroom, every muscle tensed against an unknown foe--and the space next to him on the bed was empty.  
  
"Evy?" As he sat up, his gaze was drawn to the crack of light pouring into the room from the bathroom. He slipped out of bed and, swallowing a yawn, strode toward the ajar door. "Evy, are you all right?"  
  
The noise he received in response was no comfort at all--another miserable groan--and he pushed open the door without a second thought. Evy was curled up on the floor, her knees drawn as close to her chest as she could manage, her head tipped back against the wall.  
  
Kneeling before her, his chest growing tight with concern, he took one of her hands. It was clammy, but not limp--the moment he touched her, she clung to his hand with a grip like a vise. "Evy, what's wrong?"  
  
She shrugged, her eyes still shut tight. "Dizzy."  
  
"Oh." Rick eased himself down next to her, sliding his free arm around her. She curled into his embrace, burying her face in his shoulder. "You want me to get you anything?"  
  
"I don't know." Evy's voice occasionally took on a sing-song quality when she was annoyed and doing her best to tamp that down. The timbre of her voice at that moment was oddly similar, a strained melodic note buoying the words. She shrugged again, pointing somewhere in the direction of the toilet. "I don't see what the-- _ugh_ \--world wants from me. I already sicked up dinner."  
  
Rick glanced in the direction of her pointing and nodded. "You sure did. Want to get back to bed, or d'you think you're gonna be sick again?"  
  
"I don't know," she repeated. She didn't move, so neither did he, except to stroke her back as she held onto him. There was a thin sheen of sweat over her skin--Rick wondered how long she'd been retching before he heard her. He wasn't sure how long they sat there on the hard tile, but just as his ass was well and truly starting to fall asleep, he heard her ask, "Could I have some tea?"  
  
"Yeah. Yeah, 'course I'll make you some tea." Rick kissed the top of her head, burying his face in the dark curls of her hair for a moment. "You want to come downstairs with me, or should I bring it up here?"  
  
"Up here. Please."  
  
"Okay. Let's get you into bed, and I'll make you some tea." He helped her up and walked her back into the dark room, where she curled back into a little ball the minute she hit the mattress. "I'll be back in five, okay?"  
  
"All right," she whispered. His hand was the last thing she let go of, pressing a kiss to his knuckles before he headed down to the kitchen.  
  
-  
  
When he came back up, teacup and saucer in hand, the room was precisely as he'd left it. "Evy? You awake?"  
  
There was no answer, and then a sigh, and she shifted on the bed. Evy wriggled up into a sitting position and looked up at him with a weak smile. The light still spilling forth from the bathroom caught the outline of her face and the thick hair tumbling down around it.  
  
"How're you feeling?" he asked, coming to sit down at the edge of her side of the bed.  
  
She took the cup of tea from him, held it close to her lips, and inhaled. Just the scent was enough to relax her, eyes closing softly, and she sighed again, far more pleasantly this time. She was the most beautiful thing Rick had ever seen, never more so than at this moment: tired but happy, spirits lifted by something as simple as the scent of black tea and bergamot. "A little better."  
  
"Good." He patted her knee and watched as she took a careful sip of her drink.  
  
"I miss karkadé." She looked down at the liquid in her cup, coloured a rich reddish-brown rather than the gem-like ruby of hibiscus tea. "But this is nice, too."  
  
"Funny--I could go for some decent coffee." Especially right then--Rick had done a lot more with less sleep under his belt before, but seeing Evy miserable without any way to fix it was a weirdly draining experience. "Maybe after the baby's born, we should go back to Cairo."  
  
That brought a proper smile to Evy's face; Rick silently congratulated himself on a job well done. "I'd like that. I've been reading about the Theban hills--where the Valley of the Kings is, you know--and I've got an idea..."  
  
"Tell me all about it in the morning. Otherwise you'll have to tell me all over again anyway."  
  
They sat there in the quiet, Evy sipping her tea, until she murmured, "I don't know why I've got to be sick _now_ \--I was fine until this week."  
  
"Isn't that, uh. Just part of having a baby?" Rick hadn't previously been all that familiar with the process, but even he knew it was a symptom.  
  
"At the beginning," Evy told him. She leaned over to her bedside table, setting the tea next to her reading glasses. "The books say it's supposed to go _away_ in a few months, not start."  
  
"Huh. Always have to do things your own way, don't you?" He grinned, leaning in to peck her on the cheek.  
  
"The baby does, anyway," she said, a little stiffly.  
  
"Yeah," Rick agreed. "Definitely the baby. Meanwhile, his mother's in the dictionary under 'looks before she leaps.'"  
  
" _Oh_ \--! He might've gotten it from _you_ , you beastly man." But she was laughing, too, and kissed him on the mouth before drawing away suddenly. "Ugh, I must taste like sick. Give me a moment, I'll go brush my teeth."  
  
"Nah, it's okay. You just taste like tea." There was a sort of metallic tang under that, but Rick wasn't going to think about it too hard. Now that she was out of the woods on the vomiting thing, he figured they probably ought to just go to bed. To prove it, he picked the kiss up where it left off, cupping her cheek with one hand. "See? Delicious."  
  
She rolled her eyes. "The baby gets it from you, clearly."  
  
"From both of us." Rick patted the curve of her stomach gently, unable to keep from imagining the kid inside. Regarding it, he said, "You're kind of a stinker, you know that?"  
  
"You don't know the half of it." Evy's hand joined his own, her slender fingers splaying out over the back of his hand.  
  
"Well," Rick told the baby, setting aside any notion of feeling like an ass talking to his wife's middle, "give it a rest for tonight. Your mother needs her sleep. So do I, for that matter."  
  
"Mmm." She yawned. "You tell him, darling."  
  
"Consider him told." With a smile, he took the rumpled bedsheets and laid them out over her form, then brushed a kiss over her forehead. "I'll be right back--just gotta see about the bathroom."  
  
When he finally crawled back into bed, Evy curled into his side, her head on his shoulder. He kissed her head, murmured a reply to her sleepy _I love you_ , and fell back into dreams of sand and sunlight.


End file.
